A dishonest office manager who was jailed after she brought a company to its knees by stealing more than £242,000 has been ordered to repay just £1.

The nominal order was made at a confiscation hearing at Maidstone Crown Court on Monday after a judge heard Elaine Negus had no realisable assets.

The 51-year-old, of Baileys Field, Ashford, will have to serve one day in prison if the £1 is not paid within seven days.

Negus, was sentenced in May to three-and-a-quarter years, left Emmerich (Berlon) Ltd in Ashford in a dire financial situation when she siphoned off the money over a four-year period.

The “old established family company” in Wotton Road, which makes Emir workbenches, was forced to ask for voluntary redundancies and closed for one a day week to reduce costs.

“At the time the company was having financial difficulties,” said prosecutor Ian Foinette.

“What is striking is the financial difficulties more or less reflected the money taken by this defendant, because the company was unaware where the money was going.

Let alone any dishonesty, they had to rationalise the business and that involved short-term working for staff and a great deal of soul-searching by management as to how they should treat staff, most of whom were long-term employees.”

Mr Foinette said the company had also helped 51-year-old Negus out with loans when she was short of money and financed her work qualifications.

“It was perhaps a slightly paternalistic company which looked after its employees very well,” he said.

Negus joined the company as an accounts assistant in 2005 and was promoted later to office manager.

No problems came to light while she was there but after she left in 2014 a staff member indicated he did not think his pension contributions had been properly transferred.

Accounts were examined and anomalies were discovered. Various transactions had been made without any authority.

Mr Foinette said there was a total of 79 transactions of money being transferred from the company account into her account.

Genuine suppliers had been noted on company records as having raised invoices for money due to them, but Negus had included her bank details for payment.

After her arrest she gave no explanation about where the money had gone.